A Little Push in the Right Direction

I’m finding recently that I am not doing too much. All I seem to do is eating in restaurants and write about it afterwards in a curious fashion.

Not to say this isn’t a good thing, but it seems to be distracting me from doing the thing I enjoy the most. Cooking. To be honest I just can’t be arsed.

I have no idea why I cannot be really bothered to cook that much. I’ve done a little since we’ve been back but nothing really to shout home about. I mean making lunches for Lina, (she must be getting so fed up with couscous by now) is not really inspiring me that much.

I mean it’s taken me 2½ months to start curing my own bacon, and only last week did I make a terrine for the first time since we’ve been back. These were normal things I would do only a bi-monthly basis at least before.

Am I going through a midlife crisis? Maybe. Were my vain attempts to shrug off hitting my 4^th decade just a whimsical effort of pretending it never happened.

Or is it as I think that being without work for so long is really having an effect on me. I mean it’s only been 10 weeks.

Boredom is settling in.

All this is to change, as of June 1^st I start work. Finally. Not for the want of trying. Well the company I will be working for call it training. Which will involve around 2 months of travelling in India, Nepal and China. Which I will not be enjoying, it’s for work and work alone. But I’m sure I can fit in some quality eating whilst I am over there. Hopefully.

So from now on I am making a vow. No more not being arsed to cook. I will cook damn it. I will be trying to cook what I enjoy cooking most. Offal and the cheaper cuts of meat. Although some of them are quite in vogue at the moment. These all will be posted here from time to time. But as I said it all depends on the outcome. We’ll see.

I’ve started by curing a piece of pork belly. Admittedly it’s a small piece as I slow roasted a sizable chunk of the rest, and half of what was left went into some Boston Baked Beans I rustled up the other day. Yum yum.

I’m not sure if I will reach up to my heady days in Colombia where I used to cook pig’s head and make a slab of brawn. Brine and cook ox tongues. I almost brought a calf’s head once to make a terrine, until Lina advised me we did not have a pot big enough. It was really big. 

So we shall see what the ethnic butchers around Islington and beyond can rustle up for me.